Meet the Brewer: Radicle Effect Brewerks

No one has brewed longer in the Quad Cities than Radicle Effect Owner/Head Brewer, Rich Nunez. From apprenticing for free at Bent River in the 90's to owning his own brewery on the hilltop in Rock Island for almost a decade now, Rich is full of great stories. Hear in his own words the story behind the infamous Roasted Garlic Stout, the bonds created by collaborations with other breweries and restaurants, and a new beer he brewed with actual witches. 

Let's start with your background. What were you doing before becoming a brewer and how did you get to opening Radicle Effect Brewerks?

Before brewing I was a bartender and managed pizza places. I was fortunate enough to get in with Bent River in the beginning before they were even brewing beer as a bartender. When they started brewing they let me help brew for free, so I was an unpaid apprentice brewer for about three years and eventually became the Head Brewer. I studied brewing at the Seibel Institute in Chicago and the World Beer Accademy in Germany. I was at Bent for a few years before taking a hiatus from the industry and started working on my business plan.

The name has an interesting spelling. I'm sure a lot of people don't even catch that it's not spelled “radical”. What's the meaning behind the name?

“Radicle” is in reference to the first root that grows from a seed, it's called the “radicle”, the resulting plant that grows is the effect. We brew a lot with teas, fruit, vegetables, roots, and spices and, of course, the grain and hops in the beer are all agricultural products so it all connects to the growth and process of plants.

Your brewery has been on the hilltop here in Rock Island for 9 years now, did you always plan for it to be in this location or how did that happen?

Honestly, we would have rather have been in a downtown area where all the events and people are walking around. That just makes sense as a business. But I lived up here on the hilltop and I noticed there was always the best selection of craft beer at the Hy-Vee up here and I knew the beer and liquor manager at the time so I knew he wasn't just ordering things on a whim. There had to be a demand for craft beer in this area and there just wasn't a place to go hang out and enjoy it in this part of the city at the time. It's about 90% residential up here and we've been really fortunate that the community has really embraced us over the years.

Let's talk a bit about your brewing style. Are the beers you're brewing now the same as the beers you started with 9 years ago?

When I started brewing here it was more classic styles like English Mild and Pale Ales, but nowadays people are looking for “what's next” so I have fun experimenting with other ingredients while still having a love for the base beers. I'll throw some classic styles on tap from time to time just to show people where some of their favorite “weird beers” started. Having a small system makes it pretty easy to brew what I want, what other people want, and to play around with new things I've never tried before. We have a wide age range of people who may be getting into craft beer for the first time so we try to keep a variety of new things, classics styles, and bring back some favorites for both the people that liked them before and for people that have never had them. We have over 100 original beers in our portfolio.

You also have other beer available in your tap room than just your own. What's the importance in that?

We planned to open as a brewery but things didn't completely go as planned so when we opened we were just an ale house. We didn't have any equipment to brew our own beer. So we had nine craft beers and Schlitz on tap and would bring in other bottles and cans too. We focused on having an educated and professional staff that knew how to talk about beer. Once we got our own equipment in, it was only big enough to keep around four or five of our own beers on tap so we still keep a selection of hand picked craft beer rotating on the taps. And, of course, we kept Schlitz.

When it comes to your own beer it's probably safe to say your Roasted Garlic Stout is a fan favorite. What's the story behind that beer?

So I was home brewing at a buddy's house and we were making a stout and I thought I had brought all of the ingredients but when it came time to add the hops I realized I forgot them at home. We searched through his cabinets for something with spice to use instead to balance out the sweetness from the malt. He had a jar of minced garlic so we tried to cook off the oil it was in because that wouldn't be good for the beer and we used the cooked minced garlic instead of hops. We were sure it was going to be terrible and we'd just end up dumping it but it actually turned out pretty good. Now we brew it twice a year and serve it three different ways: as it's regular stout, with an extra shot of garlic tincture, or by dropping a shot of garlic infused vodka in it like a “bomb” which we call the “Garlic Depth Charge”.

You've been around this brewing community for awhile, tell me about what makes it so collaborative and how that has coincides with your brand.

When you look at the breweries around here, most weren't started with deep pockets looking to compete and badmouth each other. The majority of head brewers and owners have known each other for years. I call other brewers on a weekly basis to bounce ideas off of, or ask them how to fix something, or even just to get together for lunch. There's no such thing as a Master Brewer when it comes to American Craft Beer, we're all students learning new techniques and processes. When we collaborate we're sharing experiences and building relationships and it keeps us from getting stuck in a rut. 

You don't just collaborate with other brewers either. Radicle is known for having restaurant pop-ups and a huge variety of food trucks. How did that start?

We don't do any advertising and we don't have our own kitchen so it kind of came from a combination of those two things. We started doing it about seven years ago before there were any food trucks around here. We reached out to a restaurant and asked if they wanted to sell plates at our place on a Friday night. The chef would come with maybe one other employee and sell some kind of featured item. It would probably be the first time they had ever served outside of their walls and maybe the first time any of our customers had heard of them or tried their food so it was kind of a symbiotic relationship. A way of “sharing the love” for both parties.

So what's new? What's coming up here at Radicle Effect?

We just did a collaboration brew with a group of witches from Taboo Burlesque. They gave me a list of ingredients that are common in “love spells”, so I picked out organic hibiscus and rose petals and we brewed a sour beer together.